The National Transportation Safety Board has concluded that pilot error is to blame for the helicopter crash that killed Montgomery Gentry member Troy Gentry in 2017. The organization released its final, two-page report on Tuesday (Dec. 4), the Tennesseanreports.

According to the NTSB's report, the pilot of the helicopter in which Gentry was riding on Sept. 8, 2017, reported that he was "unable to control engine RPM with throttle inputs." The report explains that "[t]he pilot's early entry into and failure to maintain rotor RPM during a forced landing autorotation after performing an engine shutdown in flight ... resulted in an uncontrolled descent."

However, the NTSB's report adds that "the failure of maintenance personnel to properly rig the throttle control tie-rod assembly" was a contributing factor in the crash, in which the pilot also died.

The helicopter crash that killed Gentry took place in Medford, N.J.; he and Montgomery Gentry duo partner Eddie Montgomery were scheduled to perform there that evening. Gentry was removed from the helicopter crash wreckage at the scene but was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

In February, Gentry's widow Angie filed a lawsuit against Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Sikorsky Global Helicopters, Inc. and the Keystone Helicopter Corporation, the makers of the helicopter in which Gentry died. Her suit claims that the helicopter's makers failed to make the Model 269 helicopter crashworthy, leaving its occupants no chance of survival, and that the helicopter's handbook did not offer the pilot a guide for how to deal with the mechanical issues he experienced.

Troy Gentry was 50 years old when he died. On Feb. 2, Montgomery released Here's to You, Montgomery Gentry's final album, finished just days before Gentry's death. He celebrated the new record and the duo's 20th anniversary with a 2018 tour.